Mark: It seems to me that the physical pain that my disease brings is pretty bad and uncomfortable but it is not that bad. Although, the physical pain seems to trigger a lot of emotional pain and I feel that’s where the majority of the suffering lies. It’s in these moments that the Being seems to be forgotten…
iRealization: It’s a habit, you know? Arjuna forgot many times. He actually forgot the truth in his life. He had to be reminded over and over and over again.
Mark: That’s what’s so hurtful – getting out of peace. And it doesn’t make sense that at these times it’s a completely new experience that takes over.
iRealization: Indeed.
Mark: It looks like that there’s some crazy stuff going on, you know… because of the illness and the emotional response to the illness. It seems to be like some kind of hero’s journey where the truth must be found amongst the pain of the illness and the emotional drama that comes from it.
iRealization: *Chuckle* That’s another idea only.
Mark: I think it might be, yeah.
iRealization: It’s a consolation, you know? Self-consoling with that story. If you give yourself that reality you’ll be in that mode.
Mark: Yeah…
iRealization: Is there any experience in sleep? Is there a different experience of something else in dreams? What is this experience in waking? How can it disappear? How can it change entirely? How come this Universe is not always there? If it was real it should always be there, no?
Mark: That’s the thing that has been dawning lately, the constant reassurance that I don’t disappear in sleep.
iRealization: Exactly! Continuous, unchanging reality.
Mark: And it’s obvious in this too, in this state.
iRealization: Precisely, it is in this state that the actual ground can become aware of it because it is the gross form of Awareness.
Mark: Gross in the sense that it has all these objects, right?
iRealization: It has the illusion of persistence, as if it is always here.
Mark: One thing that all this illness situation made me question several times was “What would happen if I died right now?”, and it’s pretty clear what I am won’t die ever.
iRealization: So what exactly is the meaning of that? “Die” means what?
Mark: Like going to deep sleep, having everything disappear. When I ask myself that question, it’s clear that there’s a witnessing factor that knows that and is ever-knowing of whatever happens, whether I die or live, or whatever.
iRealization: That Knowing principle is what we call the Light. You’ve discovered the Knowing, the fact that something can be known – it is simple as that.
Mark: Right.
iRealization: The minute you realize that knowledge itself is anything that can be known then there's a question of “How is it known?” and then “What is that knowing?”
Mark: Knowing can turn itself into knowledge…
iRealization: That has to do with memory. Because you cannot describe it until you have memory about it. You’re describing the memory, not the actual thing.
Mark: Is that like having the actual experience and then coming up with “Oh yeah, that’s it, that’s true, it is such and such…” That’s memory, right?
iRealization: Anything that you conceptualize, yes.
Mark: That’s one topic I’ve been exploring, what happens is that there’s the actual experience but then the mind immediately says or thinks “This is it!”
iRealization: The minute you are seeking experience of reality then you’re going to try to describe the experience but if you realize that experience is description then there’s no description needed. What is experience? The eye cannot see itself. One cannot experience Oneself. Experience is imagination.
Mark: Yeah! Experience is the problem…
iRealization: It’s not a problem. It is imagination, you know? Giving reality to your own imagination and saying it is a struggle. You are the one imagining it, no?
Mark: That makes perfect sense.
iRealization: So, once you realize what is the nature of imagination, it’s no longer troublesome.
Mark: That’s the thing about this analogy I use, when the clouds come and the sky is not so clear anymore.
iRealization: That is the nature of knowledge. What is it that becomes unclear? What is clarity and what is lack of clarity?
Mark: I think it is the belief of a sufferer. That experience of someone who’s suffering comes up and takes the whole space and makes the experience valid somehow, I don’t know how.
iRealization: Yes, but what exactly is experience?
It’s sensory experience, so the senses are operating. And why are they operating in this way? Because they are vibrating on the memory. The memory is triggered, otherwise you would not know something is red or green. There’s only light coming but the memory triggering is what says that it is a flower.
Mark: And in case of suffering it says that it is “suffering”.
iRealization: Anything. Experiencing is the process of this whole thing, you know? Light comes and vision is created, sound is there, smell is there, taste is there… But each of these things in isolation have no meaning. Only together, in the mind, the sixth sense creates something, creates a form from it and the name of it is triggered from the memory.
Mark: That’s very clear when I’m looking at the wall, in my room right now, but when the sensory part that I label as “intense” comes up, that clarity… why is it not there?
iRealization: Because we have to understand exactly the mechanics of clarity. You see, what you mean by clarity is the Knowing. The Knowing is clarity – Pure Knowing. Without any known. You cannot be clear about knowledge because knowledge is the impure portion. So you are the clarity and now you’ve become unclear because you have knowledge inside you, which is based on memory. The operation of memory is knowledge and experience is generated by that.
Mark: Yeah… that’s it!
iRealization: So when you are looking at the wall in the room it’s a little bit easier because there’s no movement, that’s why sometimes closing your eyes is easy. But the movement makes it feel as if there is somebody there.
Mark: Definitely, yes.
iRealization: When the shadow moves you feel like a ghost is there. “Oh that moved so somebody did something!”, or “Somebody said something.”
Mark: Yes, that’s exactly the issue.
iRealization: Imagination is required, you know? Otherwise light is light. So when sound remains as sound and when light remains as light, imagination ends. That’s all. You just have to see exactly what we mean by experience and if there is anything that we call “objective experience”. Then one realizes there’s no objective experience because there are no objects.
Mark: What is this fear that comes up sometimes?
iRealization: That’s why I asked you earlier exactly what is death. Just like we’ve explained what exactly is experience, now let’s go into what is death, tell me.
…
See, other than the loss of knowledge, where I know so many things or I have all these objects, all these things I’ve accumulated which I can rely on for the future – this is what you call security. So the loss of security is what you call fear.
Mark: That’s accurate.
iRealization: So in fear of death one thinks “Oh, I’m going to lose everything!” What you are losing is everything you’ve accumulated in this lifetime and the fear of starting over.
Mark: Wow, that’s a good one.
iRealization: That’s all, otherwise you wouldn’t know what is death. You cannot be afraid of something you don’t know.
*laugh*
So you have to brutally face it. Clearly. What exactly do I mean by it? Not in imagination because imagination creates the ghost – it’s not there! And ghost creates experience which is imagination and memory: “I saw something move there! It was so scary!” and all that.
Mark: So what is death really? Because when I ask myself that question I have to imagine what it is. I would have to imagine how all the objects, how the senses ceased to exist.
iRealization: So what would happen? You experience that in sleep everyday, no?
Mark: Yeah, exactly.
iRealization: But you don’t know the experience, so imagine exactly what would happen when that happens but you are not in the sleep state. It’s called Full Awareness. There’s only Awareness. Whereas in sleep that same Awareness is veiled by the projection being paused. Knowledge is temporarily not operating so nothing is seen, nothing is known and as all these things are paused, the original experience and the peace is felt. When there is no knowledge which is actual reality, when there is no memory operating, not sleep state which is a state of mind, then that is a completely different thing.
Mark: When you say that there’s no memory operating, is there such a state ever? Or is it that memory doesn’t touch what this is?
iRealization: It’s not a state, you know? States are when there is knowledge.
Mark: Yeah but I can’t find another word.
iRealization: Yeah. So it’s a stateless state. It’s a state of not being a state because state means transition. Becoming. From one thing to another thing, to another thing… It’s a memory based thing, a capture of the state of things as they are now and now and now. That’s what state means.
Mark: It is like being trapped by the memory versus the memory still happening but not being caught by it?
iRealization: In that case memory is not called “memory” anymore. There is no knowledge because knowledge happens only when there is a knower, and that itself is knowledge again. So there’s no knower there, meaning… there is no I.
Mark: Yeah, it’s a single flow going on.
iRealization: It’s very simple. See… if you realize there’s no free will for example as is the case in a dream when you say “It’s just happening…” what is the use of seeing it or doing anything about it if you can’t do anything about it?
Mark: That’s the frustrating part.
iRealization: Because you think you can do something about it, you know? It’s that you have not realized you cannot do anything about it.
Mark: Yeah, I say that it is frustrating because that sense of not having control over anything comes up as knowledge and you try to get it back and know it and establish it when you are suffering.
iRealization: Right. Already the I is in operation there – the false I.
Mark: Yeah, exactly.
iRealization: So, the question is not about knowledge and all that. The question is “Who is suffering?” Exactly who is it? Is there any individual there?
Mark: Yeah, at these times, watching the mind, contemplating and being attentive to what’s going on is helpful.
iRealization: Yes. If you try to do something you will be trying to solve the problem.
Mark: Exactly! That’s the main crux of what’s been happening when these things come.
iRealization: Yes, if you try to solve the problem… You see, it’s not there, you created it.
There are ten people going somewhere and they have to cross a river. One by one they cross, and to make sure they all have crossed safely, they count. Each time they count, they forget to count themselves, and only count the other nine. They all counted in this way. Everyone confirmed the loss of their fellow traveler and wept and wailed that the river swallowed their friend. A new person came along and asked what the matter was. He made them stand in line and counted each one with a kick. With the tenth kick they all rejoiced! The stranger has restored their lost friend. The loss of the tenth man and the gaining back of the tenth man – both were not real. Both were imagined and caused real emotions.
Mark: Yeah, that’s nice… It’s really helpful to talk with you. Really helpful. It makes it clear.
iRealization: Yeah, there’s clarity of one’s own nature. Without seeing one cannot see. Without the witnessing one cannot witness. That’s the clarity.
Photography - Courtesy of Nick Owuor
